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Poem-a-day

Rain All Night, Paris

On the road home the tide is rising.

Riding the road-tide is dangerous 
but it’s not safe to stand still. 
Hang on the verge & you drown.

I’m going along for the tide. 
I may see more riders further on. 
Drowning must wait till I get there

and who knows who might be waiting 
with a flashlight, a thermos, 
even a raft or canoe. 

“Rain All Night, Paris” from SPRINGING: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS by Marie Ponsot, copyright © 2002 by Marie Ponsot. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

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Marie Ponsot

Marie Ponsot
Photo credit: Brian Palmer
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About Poem-a-Day

Poem-a-Day is the original and only daily digital poetry series featuring over 250 new, previously unpublished poems by today’s talented poets each year. Khaled Mattawa is the Guest Editor of December. Read or listen to a Q&A with Mattawa about his curatorial process, and learn more about the 2025 Guest Editors. Support Poem-a-Day.  

If you have any questions about Poem-a-Day, visit our Poem-a-Day FAQ.

Previous Poems

Title Author Date
Vocation Sandra Beasley 09/06/2010
Days Ralph Waldo Emerson 09/05/2010
The Black Virginity Mina Loy 09/04/2010
Birthplace Michael Cirelli 09/03/2010
Cracked Ice Julie Sheehan 09/02/2010
Unjust Praise Ghirmai Yohannes 09/01/2010
I Pack Her Suitcase with Sticks, Light the Tinder, and Shut the Lid Rob Schlegel 08/31/2010
What the Last Evening Will Be Like Edward Hirsch 08/29/2010
At the round earth's imagined corners (Holy Sonnet 7) John Donne 08/29/2010
Come Slowly—Eden (211) Emily Dickinson 08/28/2010

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